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No, Tendou is a man. Unless the anime decided to radically change things.

Well yeah, he was obviously male in the game; but in the anime, the two monks referred to Tendou as a she (He even looks female). Could this mean that she's not the real Tendou?

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Spoiler:

Yeah, in fact, she was a character who was like "Hey, isn't this... y'know, wrong?" Technically, she was working for Kodzuno because the Headmaster was working for ...um... the Yellow Kidou-shuu leader, who obviously reported to Kodzuno.

Oh, didn't know that. I stumbled through the game with my half-assed Japanese, so there was a lot I didn't pick up.

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You should also adjust your set, because both Marie and Maria were blonde in the game.

What?! No way? Like dirty blonds? Or complete blonds? Was it ever mentioned in the game that they were blonds, contrary to what I saw in their character portraits?

It almost looks like auburn on my computer monitor. Maybe my memory is not with me.

I believe the monks were not referring to Tendou in that bit of dialogue using the feminine personal prounouns. However, I'm relieved that others had difficulty discerning Tendou's gender also because even after watching it probably around 7-8 times, I was *still* fairly confused on the point.

I agree with what Wao and others mentioned about both the cinematography/storyboarding and the attention detail in terms of creating the world. The episode really doesn't linger particularly on the city's brutality, but it is there in every facet, and not just in the supernatural ones. Lots of nifty shots that are framed in ways one typically only sees in movies (whether animated or live-action).

I also agree that the pace was a bit frenetic, but I'm personally hoping that they'll slow down a bit and flesh out the characters more in episodes to come. I'll enjoy watching for the action, but there's waaay too much dialogue for so little character development. Still, with the exception of the requisite (and yet simultaneously fairly unhelpful) exposition scene, it never felt overly chatty--and that's good, as there's little I tend to dislike more than a supposedly shounen anime that feels the need to natter on endlessly rather than getting with the action.

And hey, if the animation budget drops drastically, well, they can always use those episode for some character development, right?

(Thanks for the nice words from folks on our release. Nothing's ever perfect, but we'll keep doing our best. Threads like these help a lot, especially for me, as I've never played the games... though now I really want to! Demonbane is actually a very good comparison in terms of the experience of working on this episode, as that series, too, relied heavily on knowledge from the games, but was for me, at least, still enjoyable even without. Cyprene tells me I'll be fine, armed with my Persona 2 and Shin megami tensei knowledge for this one, but we'll have to see...)

I just got through finishing the first episode myself now that it's been released as a fansub. I don't know anything about the original game, I don't know anything about voice actors, studios. As you can tell I'm a huge anime newbie, but I felt it would be an interesting note to point some things out about 'Inugami' [Who, for some reason, I'm assuming is the strong, silent, glasses-teacher.]

Inugami, while I don't have a link available, is a type of spirit from Japanese folklore. Forgive me if this is any sort of spoiler as well, I couldn't find out how to wrap the spoiler tags around it. >>; If anyone's bothered I'll fix it ASAP.

Spoiler for Continuing on..:

Anyway, continuing on, 'Inugami' is a dog spirit, more accurately the spirit of a dog who was murdered - in a sense. One can make a Inugami buy burrying a dog up to it's neck and then placing a food just out of it's reach. [Of course, I don't suggest doing this - especially because Inugami have the tendency to turn around and bite their creator.] It is said that when it dies it will become a sort of spirit, who is able to walk on it's hind legs, speak the human language, and a whole bunch of other magical things.

Of course, I'm not sure if this will have ANYTHING to do with the series at all - although considering it's pace I don't know if I'd be surprised or not. My mind just immediately jumped to 'Inugami!' when I heard the name in the thread earlier and decided to mention it.

Just an interesting factoid from your local billion year deity. ^o^

Last edited by Ama no Kagaseo; 2007-01-22 at 20:40.
Reason: Spoiler fixing.

Well, that's a particularly horrifying "how to make a dog spirit" do-it-yourself... haha. You are correct that Inugami is the spectacled teacher, and I, also, have no idea whether his name is prophetic.

Thanks for the detailed Inugami info. I would guess its derivation comes from the inu->dog and kami/gami -> god/deity, but one can never be too sure with Japanese and kanji, as its etymological system is so different from English...

Spoiler tags are just like regular tags, you just type spoiler inbetween the brackets. And you definitely want to put them around that post.
And this is a massive spoiler for the game and presumably the anime regarding that subject:

Spoiler:

Yeah, Inugami is a werewolf. In the game, at least.
...you may also notice something prophetic about Maria Alucard's name, as well.

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You mean it was mentioned in one of the later chapters?

Well, that character is kind of a big deal...

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Oh, didn't know that. I stumbled through the game with my half-assed Japanese, so there was a lot I didn't pick up.

Yeah, that's why she latches on to Aoi like WOAH. Her favorite word is "Friend" by the way.

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What?! No way? Like dirty blonds? Or complete blonds? Was it ever mentioned in the game that they were blonds, contrary to what I saw in their character portraits?

Like... blond. I mean, yeah, there was some orange in there, but its like, Anko's hair isn't actually blue, y'know? Its just colored like that for variety's sake. Although Misa's hair may actually dyed be purple, I'm having trouble remembering.

Bwahaha. I've got waaaaay too much time on my hands. :XD I'm an 'author' who specializes in Shintoistic fantasy and Japanese folklore, so yes.

One could decide that if we got a look at the kanji which made up his name, but I don't have that at my hands - although I'm sure I could find it - but I'm not going to bother since I'm already banking on the fact it's not even closely related.

Although I'm going to feel mighty powerful if it turns out I'm right. My wasted hours of my life have paid off! YoY

Spoiler tags are just like regular tags, you just type spoiler inbetween the brackets. And you definitely want to put them around that post.
And this is a massive spoiler for the game and presumably the anime regarding that subject:

Spoiler:

Yeah, Inugami is a werewolf. In the game, at least.
...you may also notice something prophetic about Maria Alucard's name, as well.

That's so much. I did a little browsing in the tool bar the site offers but I couldn't find anything.

You'd probably really enjoy the game then, since its like, nothing but Japanese folklore and mythology.

I REALLY would. Unfortunately I don't have the resouces to purchase it. So, I'm stuck just making my own creations. -Sniff.- u.u

But, uhm. I suppose we're getting off topic here. I just transfered from a forum that had pretty harsh moderation, and I don't know how they respond to off-topicness here. So I think I just might inch this way. -Point.-

The game is actually available at play-asia for the very reasonable price of 35$ or so. I'm thinking of grabbing it with my next paycheck, though financial considerations may pre-empt that.

I've played the PSX version, It's one of those hideous "Pick the action your character takes today, and if you pick wrong you can never ever undo your mistake!" things that I despise so much, but it's not that bad. I'm going to keep at it just in case any of the spells come up, if I had the kanji for them it would make my life a lot easier.

The game is actually available at play-asia for the very reasonable price of 35$ or so. I'm thinking of grabbing it with my next paycheck, though financial considerations may pre-empt that.

I've played the PSX version, It's one of those hideous "Pick the action your character takes today, and if you pick wrong you can never ever undo your mistake!" things that I despise so much, but it's not that bad. I'm going to keep at it just in case any of the spells come up, if I had the kanji for them it would make my life a lot easier.

Actually, when looking for spells, it may be hard to find some of them. Especially the ones some of the monks chanted, which sounded more like Buddhist chants [ Or at least, that's what the 'generally' seem like to me]. They're popular in anime these days, such as Shounen Onmyouji and Ghost Hunt.

BUT, maybe my ears are playing tricks on me. They're fun to say, so I'll catch myself just muttering something I've heard from say.. Shounen Onmyouji out of the blue.

The uh... guy... girl... thing... I dunno. Her spells are shinto, or at least that weird mix of buddhism/shinto that's prevelant in "shinto" spells. You can tell because of the fact that there are actual VERBS in them (ito moretooru, noroi toku, etc.) I can partially translate them but after a certain point it becomes a matter of diminishing returns, if I translate one I have to translate them all, and tracking down the obscure references involved without the kanji is, to put it simply, a waste of time that could be going to other shows.

The buddhist chants in episode 1, were altered somehow. Reversed, sped up, played backwards, something. I don't know. But they're untranslatable either way. If they were in plain speech I know enough of that style that I could maybe reconstruct them, but I'm not playing with audio filters for a week per episode.

I just don't get how people can say "I dind't understand a thing, but that was cool!", as I've been reading all over the web. Really, if you want good-quality zombie-whacking, get Dead Rising. If you want good-quality zombie-whacking with Horie Yui, get Dead Rising and play Kanon or School Rumble on the background. And while we're on the subject of Kanon, another good comparison:

In the Majin screenshot, despite the purposely selected low quality of the example, I see a clever use of composition with the skewed angle focussing on Kyuichi's self-imposed isolation from the group symbolised by his position on the steps. His dejected demenour tells us he's impatient or irritable. In the foreground the emphasis is on Kisaragi's caligraphy which reveals much about his character despite having no formal introduction ~ he's dilligent with an attention for detail, suggesting his experience and knowledge of the matters at hand. The scene sets up these two characters as the focus of this sequence, with the anticipation of a conflict to arise as a result of their opposite characteristics.

In the Kanon screenshot, despite the purposely selected hi-res quality of the example, I see... uninspired choice of angle and framing, generic representations of architectural features, poorly drawn clouds and stars, snow that looks like ice cream...but oh the colours are really pretty.

You couldn't possibly explain what you meant with that, did you? I don't see anything that makes Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpucho particularly worse than Kanon. If anything the oversaturated evening sky in the second screenshot irritates my eyes. And did you use some filter or something on both of the screenshots? (EDIT: Or is that... the encoding? Yikes.)Also, it seems like there was a second comparison while I slowly typed my reply... It'd be unfair for me to comment because while I enjoyed Air and all of that I HATE Itaru Hinoue's character designs with a burning, flaming, exploding passion. Absolutely. I'd say Manabi Straight's designs despite being moe are 209204920492094209342x better, seriously... and I like the Tokyo Majin designs so any comparison on faces automatically becomes unfair

But I'm sure if you were looking for emotion-based subtle sensitive type of stories then of course this anime will suck terribly... although I'd also say that one just needs to look at the site/promo images - or heck, even the name - to figure out that it isn't that kind of show to begin with (not that either type is bad).

Though I'll just say it again that unless this show either continuously dishes out the eye-candy/whacko pacing, or unless I get interested in the characters, I won't really bother following it... come on, I secretly loved Gatekeepers, surely this can reach that level?